Big Data - and its Dark Side

Wednesday, March 6, 5:30pm ETAustin East Classroom, Austin Hall, Harvard Law School (map) ** Please note updated location **RSVP required for those attending in person via the form below

The power of big data -- analyzing huge swaths of
information to uncover insights and make predictions that were largely
impossible in the past -- is poised to transform business and society.
Fueling it is the realization that data has a value beyond the primary
purpose for which it was collected. Yet there is a dark side. Privacy is
eroded like never before. And a new harm emerges: predictions about
human behavior that may result in penalties prior to actual the
infraction being committed. In this talk Mayer-Schönberger and Cukier
take a look at big data's power, the dangers it poses and how to address
them.

About Viktor

Viktor Mayer-Schönberger is the Professor of Internet Governance and
Regulation at Oxford. His research focuses on the role of information in
a networked economy. Earlier he spent ten years on the faculty of
Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

Professor Mayer-Schönberger has published seven books, as well as over a
hundred articles (including in Science) and book chapters. His most
recent book, the awards-winning 'Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the
Digital Age' (Princeton University Press 2009) has received favorable
reviews by academic (Nature, Science, New Scientist) and mainstream
media (New York Times, Guardian, Le Monde, NPR, BBC, Wired) and has been
published in four languages. Ideas proposed in the book have now become
official policy, e.g. of the European Union.

A native Austrian, Professor Mayer-Schönberger founded Ikarus Software
in 1986, a company focusing on data security, and developed Virus
Utilities, which became the best-selling Austrian software product. He
was voted Top-5 Software Entrepreneur in Austria in 1991 and
Person-of-the-Year for the State of Salzburg in 2000.

He chaired the Rueschlikon Conference on Information Policy, is the
cofounder of the SubTech conference series, and served on the ABA/AAAS
National Conference of Lawyers and Scientists. He is on the advisory
boards of corporations and organizations around the world, including
Microsoft and the World Economic Forum. He is a personal adviser to the
Austrian Finance Minister on innovation policy.

About Kenneth

Kenneth Neil Cukier is the Data Editor of The Economist. From 2007 to
2012 he was the Japan business and finance correspondent, and before
that, the paper's global technology correspondent based in London, where
his work focused on innovation, intellectual property and Internet
governance.

Previously, he was the technology editor of The Asian Wall Street
Journal in Hong Kong and a regular commentator on CNBC Asia. Earlier
still, he was the European Editor of Red Herring and worked at The
International Herald Tribune in Paris. From 2002 to 2004 Mr. Cukier was a
research fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, working on
the Internet and international relations.

His writings have also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington
Post, Prospect, The Financial Times and Foreign Affairs, among others.
He has been a frequent commentator on business and technology matters
for CBS, CNN, NPR, the BBC and others.

Mr. Cukier serves on the board of directors of International Bridges to
Justice, a Geneva-based NGO promoting legal rights in developing
countries. Additionally, he serves on the board of advisors to the
Daniel Pearl Foundation.